UK Borders Bill

moved Amendment No. 59: 59: Clause 33, page 17, line 42, leave out ““at a time chosen by the Secretary of State”” and insert ““as soon as possible following the person’s period of imprisonment and in any event within three months of that date”” The noble Lord said: In the Joint Committee on Human Rights, we had one human rights compatibility concern about the provisions in the Bill concerning the automatic deportation of foreign national prisoners. The provisions appear to give rise to a risk of prolonged post-sentence immigration detention, which is potentially in breach of the right to liberty in Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Bill provides that a person who has already served a period of imprisonment may be detained under the authority of the Secretary of State while the Secretary of State considers whether he must make an automatic deportation order and pending the making of such an order where he decides that such an order must be made. The Secretary of State has a wholly open-ended discretion as to the timing of such an order. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, in its work on foreign national prisoners, has found that a number of foreign nationals have been held in prison and immigration removal centres far past their sentence expiry date, awaiting a decision on whether they will be deported. Such prolonged post-sentence detention carries a high risk of breach of the right to liberty in the article to which I have referred. The committee felt that, to meet this point, the Bill should be amended to lay down a specific timeframe within which the Secretary of State must decide whether he is required to make a deportation order. The committee believed that the aim should be for the Secretary of State to make that decision as early as possible following a foreign national prisoner’s commencement of his or her sentence of imprisonment. In the amendment, I am trying to give effect to the Joint Committee’s recommendation, but also to help the Government fulfil the obligations into which they have entered under the European Convention on Human Rights. I beg to move.